
COEflRIGinr DEPGSiT. 




THE YALE SERIES 



Horizons 





OF YOUNGER POETS 



( 



■^ 
J^ 



iH9 



PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 

The Yale Series of Younger Poets is designed to afford a publishing 
medium for the work of young men and women who have not yet 
secured a wide public recognition. It will include only such verse as 
seems to give the fairest promise for the future of American poetry, — 
to the development of which it is hoped that the Series may prove a 
stimulus. Communications concerning manuscripts should be addressed 
to the Editor, Professor Charlton M. Lewis, 425 St. Ronan Street^ 
New Haven, Connecticut. 

VOLUMES ISSUED, OR PLANNED FOR 
EARLY PUBLICATION 
I. The Tempering. By Howard Buck. 
II. Forgotten Shrines. By John Chipman Farrar. 

III. Four Gardens. By David Osborne Hamilton. 

IV. Spires and Poplars. By Alfred Raymond Bellinger. 
V. The White God and Other Poems. By Thomas Gal- 

decot Chubb. 
VI. Where Lilith Dances. By Dart Macleod Boyle. 
VII. Wild Geese. By Theodore H. Banks, Jr. 
VIII. Horizons. By Viola C. White. 



Horizons 



VIOLA C. WHITE 




NEW HAVEN • YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON • HUMPHREY MILFORD • OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

MDCCCCXXI 







COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY 
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 



MAV 16 1921 



CU614492 



r 

Tacknowledgments. 



7" /"^ RATEFUL acknowledgment is made by the author to 
^ Vjr The Atlantic Monthly, The Poetry Review, "The An- 
^ thology of Magazine Verse for 1918" (William Stanley 
gBraithwaite), The Stratford Journal, The Survey, and The 
^ World Tomorrow for permission to reprint in this volume 
certain poems which first appeared in their pages. 



TO MY MOTHER 



CONTENTS. 

Clouds 

To a Sea-gull 

Wind and Ocean . 

The Astronomer 

To a Friend . 

Summer Thoughts in Winter 

October 

The Witch of Althemair . 

Perneb 

Dandelion 

Full Moon on the Acropolis 

The Prehistoric Lake 

Past and Future 

Impressions of Hawaiian Music 
I. The Rising Moon 
II. The Curse . 
III. After Rain . 

The Children and the Inlet 

At the Scheidegg . 

Snowstorm 

Jungfrau 

Dutch Slumber Song 

Fairy Message 

Sunday Morning . 

In the Cow Pasture 

Three Hours at Owego 

September Walk 

The Sage's Boat 

Prisoners 

Nocturne 

The Search for the Will 

The Lake on My Lands 

Liberated 

Child of Adam 

Failures 

The Guardians 



The First Poppy . 

Ballad . 

To a Starfish 

Changing Runners . 

Free-thinkers 

Abelard 

The Undeterred 

The Antique Necklace 

Venice . 

Vagabond 

April Afternoon 

Nature Speaks 

The North Wind . 

Advice 

The Eagle's Flight 

Ali to Azrael 

Litany of the Comfortable 

Concerning Martyrdom 

Elan Vital . 



61 
62 

63 
64 

65 
66 

68 
69 
70 

71 
72 
73 
74 

75 
76 

77 
78 

79 

80 



10 



CLOUDS. 

O CLOUDS that go to glory 
In afternoon's clear blue, 
From waterfronts of cities 
I rise and follow you ! 
From springs that feed the forest, 
From windy meadows' dew, 
From pools of desert places 
I rise and follow you ! 
From fallen rain, in fire 
Caught up to heaven anew, 
From living and from dying 
I rise and follow you I 



11 



TO A SEA-GULL. 

WINGED reconciler of the sea and sky, 
Piloting winds that howl above the sun, 
Riding the unenduring tides that run 
To vex the sand with mutability, 
Thou art the angel of ports never won 
By proudest mariners that sail the sea, 
Angel and sea-dog, winged with outland majesty! 

O'er indigo depths where the palmtree crest 

And tamarind from coral islands rise 

Thou wert a spirit making Paradise 

More beautiful for his divine unrest; 

And where Icelandic kings with hoary eyes 

And rudder colder than their ingot-chest 

Steered poleward, thou wert there, a reveller and guest. 

I watch thy domination of the air. 

The level-winged and flashing silences 

Through sunlit cloud and blue, ethereal ease; 

And, having seen thee excellently dare 

Lightning and hail, I wonder without cease 

That ocean's dark necessity could bear 

A freedom like to thine, valiant and poised and fair. 

And now the sun is sinking down the deep 

Thy wings are furled. Thy little fleet is spread 

To rise and fall on long waves' crimson tread, 

Outfloating Carthage. O'er earth's troubled sleep 

Keep thou cold nightly vigil, and ahead 

Of earth's incredible and awful sweep 

Through unplumbed ether, ride upon the darkness steep. 



12 



WIND AND OCEAN. 

Wind: 

How long before daybreak, O watchful brother*? 

Ocean: 

An hour or so. The sun shall rise 
And my waves hail him even as when at first 
The burning globe upon creation burst 
They hailed him, with an ever-new surprise. 

Wind: 

I hold, with all-pervading sleep, 
Earth's ward tonight. 
The snake hides under a rock-heap, 
The squirrel warms a hollow tree. 
Panther and lynx hunt silently. 
After a slow interval 
Needles of the pine-wood fall 
On rivers flowing out of sight. 
How is it with thee *? 

Ocean: 

Resigned in law, but not at rest. 

Of the kingdom I possessed 

Half rebels afar from me. 

From my lair with graves I see 

What has been moulding what shall be. 

Over shelving coasts I tell 

Creatures that change and do not hearken well 

Of fate and of futurity, — 

My memories their prophecy. 

Volcanic cliffs rose in the north 
At last night's sunset. I went forth. 
Now the dark green waters swell 
Over them, without a stir 
White foam breaks and fades away 
Amid the icebergs sluggishly. 
There one stronghold have I bound 
Against man, the voyager. 

13 



Wind: 

The troubler and the mystery ! 

His bones I pasture through the wildernesses, 

My dreadful sheep ! 

Ocean: 

In the unfathomed depth of my recesses 
His hostile ships a truce unwitting keep. 
Strangest of animals ! To gain the dowers 
That in gods' hands beneficently burn 
Of will and science, and their yielded powers 
Against himself, a flaming curse, to turn! 

Wind: 

King of the void, heir of the dark, to inherit 
From earth and sea 

Compulsion that he names the Holy Spirit, 
Like unto me ! ^ 

{A pause) 
How often, brother, we have held communion 
In tolerant marshes, where rank, cluttered nests 
Screamed round us, and in caverns myriad-eyed. 
Encountering in tempest openly 
And on the summit of emerging alps, 
Before the race of man had come to birth! 

Ocean: 

Yea, and in tolerant marshes where rank nests 

Scream round us, and in caverns myriad-eyed. 

Encountering in tempest openly 

And on the summit of emerging alps 

We shall hold speech together when the name 

And trace of man are vanished from the earth. 



H 



THE ASTRONOMER. 

WATCHING suns and planets veer 
Through the windless atmosphere 
All night vigilant, alone, 
He judged their going from a throne 
Higher than kings of earth sit on, — 
From the unbreathing midnight hour 
Till the cold and rainy dawn 
Struck the observatory tower 
And pines began to bend and lower 
On the mountain range below ; 
Herds dark-streaked by the shower 
Sought uplands green with melted snow ; 
The cataract in sheets of spray. 
Sullen through the forest blown, 
Through the forest drenched a way. 
Then the stars of heaven were gone. 
Fire-hearted steeds that run 
With a heavenly delight 
On the pampas of the night 
Lawful and untameable. 
All the stars from heaven were gone, 
In his mind come down to dwell 
From the pampas of the sky. 
If they rise up clear and high. 
If they set in blinding rain. 
Of their ranging he can tell. 
And they know their master nigh 
When he strokes each plunging mane. 
The celestial worlds inherit 
The dark pasture of his spirit. 



15 



TO A FRIEND. 

NIGHT shall end my night, 
Yet I trust 
Thou art a thing too bright 
To fall on dust. 
The angel of the Lord 
Shall lift thy sword, 
Servant of the just! 

Night shall end my night, 
Yet I pray 

Heaven spare thy light, 
Lest lambs stray. 
Thou remembering me. 
Mine immortality 
Lasteth all the day. 



16 



SUMMER THOUGHTS IN WINTER. 

I GAIN the fireside from the whetted edge 
Of January's moon, and icy ruts 
That gleam the more to every whistling sledge ; 
And by the fireside, though wind yet cuts 
Canyons without, my dreaming memory 
Tells my numbed senses of green summer sedge, 
While these, entranced, hear half believingly, 
Even as if some hoar Neanderthal 
Told cave-born children of the tropic mirth 
His youth remembered, in the interval 
Before the glaciers came down over earth. 

Half dreaming I recall in mid-July 
Motionless in a notch against the blue 
A peak of dawn-red cloud, that, riding high. 
When noon had stripped the spider webs of dew, 
In shapes of white light manifold and deep 
Had spread abroad and taken all the sky. 
Crickets, — the voice of fields that talk in sleep, — 
Were chirping, and the shadows of cloud sent 
A changeful gloom across the fields. Afar 
Out in the bay the sun that came and went 
Flashed on one oar beyond the harbor-bar. 

There was a highroad where through heaviest trees 

The burning of the summer sun would dart 

When they waved dusty leaves within the breeze. 

Wheels passed ; a laughing dog rode on a cart. 

I struck out from the highroad, tangled soon 

On paths that died in piney fastnesses, — 

And there a bird sang all the afternoon. 

Striving to reach the bird in hide-and-seek 

I lost the bird, and in a hollow found 

A pool, upon the brink a turtle sleek 

That dived and blackly vanished without sound. 

17 



Can I believe that bees will yet grow bold 

In the white buckwheat fields through August days? 

That butterflies their yellow wings will hold 

Rapt over sun-caked mud ? That scrubby ways 

Will turn for miles the air to ripening wine 

Of berries, and the pods of milkweed fold, 

As cast from heaven too soon, their armoured shine? 

Alas, the time for summer dreams is past ! 

Alas for me that I must rise and go. 

The world's death in my bones, against the blast, 

Through the inertia of the fallen snow ! 



18 



OCTOBER. 

WITHIN the moving forest, where a shade 
More brilliant than noon-light 
Threw strangeness over friends, and fierce delight, 

As through the lowering weather 

They tramped together. 
Upon the height 

Of ledge on ledge up-piled, where bronze oaks cast 
Their gusty moaning on the outland blast. 
The winding-sheet of earth was being made ; 
And under the moist earth, made rich with meed 
Of wind-swung falling nuts and leaves and cased seed, 
The dark mole burrowed and I found him not. 
O'er multitudinous hills, with rapid tread 
Muffled by heaped leaves dead, 

I journeyed where 
No mortal dwelling rose in cold gray air 
Save an old smithy. One great wheel forgot 
Leaned on the abandoned door. The windy hours 
Led me by oozy flat and sudden gentian flowers. 
Led me by hemlock path and by dim pools where rain 
Fell in sparse circles all the long twilight. 

In purple mountain-cleft a cider mill 

Uprose. The last wood gods came trooping for their fill 

With "Here's to you before the red sun drops" 

Swilling the amber juice. From ram horns fell adown 

The pale witch-hazel woven for a crown 

With frost-cracked bittersweet on tossing locks. 

Then they all turned and up the height did flee ; 

Stoning black butternuts from the grim gallows-tree, 

Cramming their crops 
With winter apples pecked by birds' departing flocks, 
With tumult they were vanished in still rocks. 
They left no trace. Only the lumbering bear 
Left his track there. 
He that was gone so deep 
For hoUow-caverned sleep. 

19 



Upon the farmland frosty morning broke. 

Blue forest smoke 
Mile after mile was visible. The wains, 
Loaded with hay, put wayfarers to pains 
To give them all the road. 

The fields with buckwheat stubble reddened wide. 
The pumpkins stranded by a mellow tide 
Lay amid sheaves of corn that, deeply bowing, owed 
Some charmed obeisance not to be denied. 
The air was blue, gray the horizon-range, 
The sound of labor came distinct and strange, 
And all the day I was unsatisfied. 
Remembering vanished races. 

Restless I wandered at the day's decline 

By glassy river, and by vivid lake 

Peopled alone by mounds the large ants make. 

Till at the last 
Through silent streets bordered with elm I passed 
That since the Revolution have not stirred 

Save at the flying bird. 
Save at the fall of elm and maple leaves. 
Like flickering memories. At the horizon-line 
The sun through gathered cloud sent smouldering shine 
Athwart the yellow, nest-revealing trees. 
The grass yet green beneath, and glorious hill on hill. 

All through the night ■ 
I heard the floods and lightnings wreak their will 
On earth. With an unbridled wind I sped 
O'er half the world, and heard his av/ful pride 
Broken in cemeteries, where he cried, 
"I came not here to strive against the dead !" 

With rain I sank. 
Blackening forest roots, down cold springs, dank 
With drowned leaves ; down many a mountain-side 
Widened in streams, tossing old tree trunks wide 
Apart, and whirling them together, till 
The streams plunged headlong in a river, fair 

20 



Advancing, flanked with palisades, to sea, 

And prows of vessels pushed the massed leaves easily 

Aside, while they steamed to the river mouth ; 

And on the banks, sudden from north, from south, 

Fires leaped up as for a victory. 



21 



THE WITCH OF ALTHEMAIR. 

WHEN windless rain falls in the forest, making 
The green leaves move 
Slightly, the drear lake's magic mirror breaking, 
I stir and rise, remembering my love. 
I see her grey eyes, threatening and fair, 
I ride with her the stormy clouds above, 
I sink in midnight flooding of her hair, — 
The witch of Althemair. 

I know it is a dream ; yet wildly hoping 

At some far sound, 
I leave my poor hut, and on mountains groping 
I seek her whom the age-long charm has bound 
Within the hollow tree-trunk by her hair 
About the tree-trunk wound and interwound. 
Her dark hair where the rains are falling there, — 

The witch of Althemair. 

I keep on earth my travail for a token 

When the rains fall. 
That with an ecstasy no time has broken 
I rode the height of heaven at her call. 
While mountaineers draw round their pine-knots' flare 
I seek the stormy forest and the pall 
Of night by night that darkens with her hair, — 

The witch of Althemair. 



22 



PERNEB. 

[Perneb's tomb has been set up in the New York Metropolitan 
Art Museum.^ 

PERNEB built himself a tomb. 
Round the wall go slaves a-row, 
Slaves with sidelong red feet slow, 
Staring frontward with their eyes, 
Bringing Perneb through the gloom 
Of his solemn, spicy room 
Thousand loaves and joints of meat, 
Thousand live gazelles or so, 
Thousand trays of figs and wheat. 
Following them in a line 
Slaves bear out of dim recesses 
Perneb's change of thousand dresses. 
Perneb has no dearth of wine. 
Through the high and breathless air 
Red and yellow jars shine bare. 
The blue lotus flowers twine 
Accurately, in design. 
At the centre, large and wise, 
Painted Perneb doth arise. 
Reviewing his processional, 
Counting cattle on the wall 
Opposite, each flank appraising. 
Perneb with a swelling chest, 
Perneb with a chastened waist, 
A gold collar interlaced 
With the scarab, and a wig, 
Holds a folded linen cloth, — 
Sole concession to mutations, — 
To flap winged insects off. 
Sons and wives and poor relations 
Kneel before him, under size. 

Unless all that's left us lies, 
Perneb was a chamberlain 
Administering for a king 

23 



Who appreciated him. 
He arrayed his Memphian king; 
He inspected cattle, too,— 
Had a priest's job on the side. 
When he wore the leopard skin. 
Shudderingly thought has tried 
To contemplate that land's descent 
Down the abyss, when Perneb went. 

Where's the eye that made the slaves 

Cower in arrested waves ? 

Where's the hand that flapped at flies, 

And kept relations under size? 

Where's the will that laid on stone 

Shape for twice two thousand years 

By commandment of its own. 

That so and not otherwise 

The decorous chambers glow 

For no reason man can know 

Save that Perneb willed it so ? 

Sands of dusty years have strown 

Abu Roash and the south, 

Sakkara and Dahsur's drouth. 

Twice two thousand years are blown 

Harmlessly as yesterday 

O'er the walls of Perneb's sway. 

In the chamber toward the west 
Lies a skull like any skull 
Neutral, indisputable, — 
Perneb's,— so it may be guessed. 
Desert thieves dispersed the rest 
From^ the dwelling clear and fit. 
Time's a tactless thing at best. * 
Perneb got the worst of it. 



24 



DANDELION. 

DOWN the road I spied the weed, 
And the head was gone to seed. 
I ran to blow it into air. 
Suddenly from out the heart 
Sighed a ghost, complaining there : — 

"I am bound in a world that is old and round 

And cannot die, 
Though it wave perpetually, — 
Hoary-headed world and round 
That debars me from the sky. 
In a solid ball imbound 

Captive evermore I cry." 

Then I pulled the stem and blew. 
Out upon the wind he flew. 



25 



FULL MOON ON THE ACROPOLIS. 

HERE is the immortality of night. 
Time, tranced to marble quietude, forgets 
Futurity. The wind has dropped stone-cold 
To sleep on level vineyard, Attic plain 
And gulfs smooth and moon-cloven. Flocks and herds 
Move fitfully along the darkling slopes. 
A soldier's ballad, sudden, rough and free. 
The crowing of a single cock, beguiled 
With infinite effulgence of false dawn, 
Ephemerally have surprised the night 
Like shooting stars that fade upon its heart. 
Borne to reality of solemn arch 
And radiant architrave and pillars reared. 
Blinding with old day, from the earth to heaven, 
Have I outwatched the track of hollow ship 
And track of chariot, where sea and plain 
Stretch naked to the consummated moon. 
The lights of Athens, proud and myriad. 
That seem as just about to move along 
Processionally, and that yet remain. 
Are tongues of fire round the city's sleep 
Syllabled by the dead that speak in light 
Instantly clear. 

For yet a little while. 
Evading despot reason's sentience 
Called time and space, I have come back again. 
Seaweed apparent in the early gulf. 
Mysterious with distance, comes my hope, 
My grave-deep fantasy. Miraculous, 
Arcana-arched city, nevermore 
Of Theseus nor of Hadrian, and thou 
Acropolis appointed desolate 
As God Himself o'er the loquacious earth. 
Where is the dawn of old*? For I recall 
It raced in gold upon a racing sea. 
In burning gold upon the wine-red sea. 
An ardent charioteer, from unshored deeps 

26 



To Phaleron's blue coast, and far within 
The haunt of wind-vexed reeds. Day broke so clear 
On the religious town that the frail mists 
Shone rose-red, beyond light; immaculate 
And Cytherean, from her airy ocean, 
The Parthenon emerged from rose-red mists. 
I stood where yet the Propylaean gate 
Was not swung open to receive a throng 
Brave in the sunlight. Priest and lutanist, 
Elder and warrior, those bearing trays 
One after one ; advancing in a file 
Those bearing water vessels ; cavalry 
Wind-footed and compelling as the wind, 
And arrow-thoughted youth, for government 
Trained in assembly neath judicial stars. 
Awaited. Maidens, moulded for the clasp 
Of starry gods that set memorial 
Of beauty constellated in the sky. 
Were leading deep-browed heifers with the tread 
Of sandal-fastening Nike. Yet amid 
The holiday, premonitory fear 
Was on me, for I felt my forehead cold 
With Proserpine's unearthly asphodel, 
Blasted by too much moonlight. I remained 
Half dreaming. As one bodes from swallow flight 
The fall of empire I blamed the gift 
Of votive offering forgotten for 
This swift eclipse of day, and homeward turned 
To lift from scented wood the honey-bread. 
The Cretan wine, the kneaded cake, prepared 
Of blossoms from whose pollen bees fed not, 
So early were they plucked. Even as I turned 
One warned to hasten, and I mocked at him, 
"The citadel will be as Ilion 
Doubtless, when I return," — whereat a shout 
From myriad throats like a young eagle rose 
Aloft the height, to swayless forests of 
Vast-shapen gods in august conference. 
Borne on the wings of that victorious shout 

27 



I passed along the highway where urned death 
Upraises shapes of bright life's commonplace* 
To lands where death was prototype of life, 
Where generations kept with scourge and sword 
Memorial of the god that harrowed hell 
For healing of the nations that yet groan. 

It is unfitting that a mortal thought 
Should outlive deity. I would my thought, 
Hid in deep-rivered hills, had shared the life 
Of mines as yet unquarried to the sun. 
Pale centuries are dead. I have returned, 
Haloed and blinded with the selfsame dream. 
Past all that mortal men have reared in prayer,— 
(Gigantic guesses through the wilderness), — 
Argos-eyed hope, superincumbent fear 
Devoted as its prey, to Attica 
Possessing in the hollow of her hills 
A brilliant slumber, rapt ineffably. 
Around it pepper-trees like fountains wake 
Selene's silver silent light to sound. 
Hymettos hath forgot his heavy bees, 
Pentelic slopes are stretched like perfect limbs 
Of some forwandered giant night o'ertook. 
And fane-crowned Lykabette, arising, strikes 
His mitred head amid the glancing stars. 
Orestes, Christ and Mahomet passed here. 
A little stone remains ; the ether shines 
As when a thunderbolt, departing, leaves 
Memorial night, with all its silences. 
Olives coeval with philosophy. 
My thought turns marble-cold ! I question not, 
Nor ponder overmuch how these gray leaves 
Have waved the sage asleep. Long grass that runs 
Oblivious of wrong o'er living word 
And lost word, wrought alike by dead men's hands, 
I question not nor supplicate again ! 
Acropolis that change has left divine 

*Dipylon. 

28 



And inarticulate as will of gods 
Half-shaped from hollow cliff or haunted run 
Or water, I nor question overmuch 
Nor supplicate, for all my thought is turned. 
Through vigil and the moon's plenipotence, 
More multiform than marble, and more cold. 



29 



THE PREHISTORIC LAKE. 

WHEN the hamlet and the dogs are sleeping 
The green caverns of the mountain quake ; 
Rows of old men come at midnight, weeping, 
Weeping for the legendary lake. 
To and fro they interlace the moonlight, 
To and fro with stately rhythm glide. 
All together to a mournful measure 
Piling old runes in a massy treasure 
Round the oak roots of the mountain-side. 
Then before the morning's eyes 
View that tranced sacrifice 
They have vanished to the caverns where the water courses rise. 

Swift the chattering and bright 

Little hamlet shakes the night 

From its heels when larks awake, — 

Not a peasant in it caring 

As he whistles on his faring 

If, beyond a granddam's knowing, 

Where sunburnt feet and scythes are going 

The transparent waves were flowing 

Of a legendary lake ; 

If leaning palaces and trees 

With grey moss clinging at their knees 

Gazed in those blue deeps, forsooth. 

At dawn, remembering their youth, 

Or kings in robes like chrysolite 

Shining through the summer night 

Their blameless covenant did write. 

Jacques, a-bowing neath his rake 

That combs the brown leaf from the grass 

Beside the road folk take from mass 

Shakes his scraggling beard in ruth 

At the legendary lake. 

And the Evil One's deceiving 

For a pomp that never was. 

Is it matter for believing 

That, where the Father's dwelling be 

30 



And every night the Father pours his tea 

Shining monsters, fixed of eye, 

Swam passing one another by*? 

And the iridescent glass 

Boys dug rumbling out of the ground, — 

Bowls and baubles to a rumbling sound, — 

Were the Evil One's deceiving 

For a pomp that never was. 

Not a coney skin he'd stake. 

Not a yellow straw, in truth. 

On the ruined forest hoary 

Or the cross-unhallowed glory 

Of the legendary lake. 



31 



PAST AND FUTURE. 

Future speaks: 

Seldom I honor the dark wife 
Appointed me for bale or bliss. 
No bounds are set upon our strife ; 
The present is our fleeting kiss. 

Her passionate will has made me halt. 
Her triumph is my lost desire. 
On stairs of marble and basalt 
She holds me down a burning fire. 

We two shall walk the earth at noon 
And when the sun is lying dead. 
Our way beneath the sun and moon 
Inevitably lies ahead. 

Our way with outcast gods is seen, 
August, but by calamity. 
Her head is bowed for what has been. 
And mine for what will never be. 



32 



IMPRESSIONS OF HAWAIIAN MUSIC. 

I. The Rising Moon. 

A Malayan runs his canoe over the lagoon, 
Over unfathomed waters black and calm, 
Kept by the alligator and the loon. 
He slides ashore, and climbing arm over arm. 
Goes climbing to the top of the highest palm, 
For the topmost leaf to work his enemy harm. 
Gathered at midnight, brewed in the witch doctor's charm. 
What is it there, 
The yellow glare 
Swinging out of the sultry air ? 
Is it the lynx that hunts by night. 
His fixed eye watching there so bright 
For the brown body descending soon? 
The feathery top of the tallest palm 
Sways in alarm. 
Violently the palm top sways to the rising moon. 

II. The Curse. 

At dawn when dew shook heavily 

And islands laughed within the sea. 

My neighbor claimed my banyan tree. 

Through sun and shade till spacious noon 

I cursed him softly to a tune 

Of wild, compelling melody. 

I watched through the still afternoon 

My neighbor's tongue becoming thick. 

My neighbor growing very sick. 

And dying most unquietly; 

Then, when the sun sank in the bay 

Upon the bright and cloudless day. 

Myself, my wife, my children three 

Had salad from the banyan tree. 



33 



III. After Rain. 
The light is set on the hill, 
The stream runs fierce and free. 
I am cold with the tears of forests chill 
As I come to thee. 

The light is lost in the night, 
The stream is lost in the sea. 
Through forests weeping in bright moonlight 
I come to thee. 



34 



THE CHILDREN AND THE INLET. 

WE must be starting to explore. 
Our boat will leave the lake, and quite 
Vanish out of people's sight. 
The border willows twist and curve 
Around one half of the lake shore, 
Making no deeper bend nor swerve 
Where the stream comes rushing in 
From the dark and watchful wood 
Than in many a shallow more. 
Unless you knew you never could 
Find the place. Here we begin, 
Pushing the willow boughs aside 
That hide the mouth, now we have pried 
Oars out for paddles, for the space 
Narrows. We grind our teeth and brace 
Our feet and paddle hard and quick. 
Blaming each other when we stick, 
Inch after inch upstream. A tree 
Stands in the water. With a clank 
Our boat chain lassoes it, lest we 
Go slipping backward in the chase. 
Inch after inch we push along 
The current, obstinate and strong. 
Splashing and shoving manfully. 
Look how it winds and winds about! 
But we have come to track it out. 
The asters crowd down to the bank 
And monkey-face looks in to see. 
The woods close round us large and black. 
It is about time we went back. 
Now let her go, — and all we do 
Is take life easy, sit and steer 
While grandly we go sliding through 
The landscape back and backward, — when 
We shoot out in the lake again ! 
We did not know it was so near. 
We come out blinking into it. 
And there the fishermen still sit 

35 



Just as we left them, in the sun, 
And the golden ripples run 
On the lake floor fast and clear. 
Things do not seem so different 
From what they did before we went. 



36 



AT THE SCHEIDEGG. 

COME up, come up, come high enough and free 
To match your strong heart with the eagle's wing. 
And come a-chasing after spring, 
White and green, a lovely thing. 
Or did you think that spring was fled 
Like a dryad in a tree 
In July's maturity? 
Or did you think that spring lay dead 
To the locusts' litany *? 
O, follow where the spirit led. 
When a silver-dripping morn. 
Sudden witch, around you spread 
The lake-leaning alders red. 
When on your devoted head. 
Dreaming of outriding ships 
From the sea's apocalypse, 
The last wind of winter sent 
Star-dust snow, and wonderment. 

Come up, for airs are breathing glad and fine. 

The rocks climb sunward all in burning gold ! 

Come up ! Upon the edge of the snow-line 

That marks the pale lands' uttermost decline 

And green's contested splendor of ascent 

A bird goes dropping as he flies divine 

Reveille bold. 

Evanishing aloud 

In an inspired cloud ; 

And very far below the valleys keep 

The sultry calm of their midsummer sleep. 

And far above the blue-caved glaciers go. 

Here bloom the flowers of a haunting bride, 

The buds half-seen before the rainbow died 

That scattered here her skiey laughters low. 

Where the streaked snow drips earthward in pure light 

Are wide-eyed crocus, lavender and white, — 

The excellent awakening of snow, — 

37 



And violets pulled from the Alpine glow, 

And furred hepatica, whose color vies 

With the cupped glory of the hyaline 

When, kneeling at sunrise, 

An angel lifts within his hands its shine 

Against the slanting sun, a tremulous grail and sign 

Here mystical and still 

Across the resurrected summit chill 

Is borne the cry unutterably hurled 

From walled ice-caverns of another world, 

The secret three times purified in dew. 

The ranging presence, virginal and new, 

Of glory uncreated. Even as Truth 

Arises out of windy Memory, 

Spring and first youth 

Come over the abyss triumphally. 



38 



SNOWSTORM. 

THERE lives above in a lonely place 
A maiden, free as the winds are free. 
Snow-white are her arms, snow-white her face. 
She tosses her white thoughts carelessly ; — 
Falling showers of snow. 
Purely and perfectly free, 
Lightly and airily blowing 
For mortals to see. 
She tosses her perfect thoughts 
Carelessly, carelessly. 



39 



JUNGFRAU. 

JUNGFRAU is a resting cloud, 
Or a Lorelei of snow. 
Over her the moon has bowed 
With a lake-like murmur low. 
Troops of the night hours wing 
O'er the maiden and the fay, 
Rapt and spiritual thing ! 
All the night her summit white 
Glimmers in an endless day. 
Round her dazzling winds cry loud, 
And she is more glad than they. 



40 



DUTCH SLUMBER SONG. 

THE little fields are very green, 
And kine the little fields do keep. 
Through many channels laid between 
Waters creep. 

A stork goes stepping unto nest, 
Goes stepping solemn like a king; 
And red the west, and in the west 
White gulls wing. 

Boats are floating all the night 
Down the level waters black. 
Boats that left by candle-light 
Have all come back. 

They have cut the hay and bound it. 
Poled along, the barge lags by. 
Lazy duckweed winds around it 
Lingeringly. 

Fishers squatting in a row 
Now have told their latest tale, 
Now the flapping mills swing slow, 
And words fail. 

Goodnight, little fields so green, 
Kine that little fields do keep. 
Little country, brave and clean. 
Half asleep. 



41 



FAIRY MESSAGE. 

You still might harken on the hills 
To roundelay 
Of elf song gay 

And figures flying on the wind when moonlight nights are clear, 
Heighho for fairy laughter, if you had ears to hear ! 

And in the dewdrop you might trace 
Our rainbow wings, 
And chance on rings 

For woodland dance, moss-couched, and each alight with fire- 
flies three, 
Heighho for fairy laughter, if you had eyes to see ! 

Then weep no more in mournful melody 

A vanished race 

Whose dwelling place 

Shines at your feet, and evermore remains a happy land, 

Heighho for fairy laughter, if you could understand ! 



42 



SUNDAY MORNING. 

THROUGH deep heaven's intense blue, 
Over grain fields bowed with dew 
The bell in the white church-tower tolls 
Summons to accustomed souls. 
Folk go by in twos and threes 
Under the full-leafed trees 
Of the central village street, 
In their best, stiff and complete. 
With hushed stir. Their words are slow. 

They are past. Now swiftly grow. 
Moss in hollow pear-tree croft. 
Cricket song in hid hayloft ! 
An old spider floats out free. 
Borne along invisibly. 
In and out the hollyhocks 
Bees go moving the tall stalks. 
Pollen-dusted out they creep 
With hum that lulls silence asleep. 
The old-fashioned garden glows 
As though jewels of the mine. 
Sighing souls out for repose 
Of waving air and garden-close. 
Hither came all hot to shine. 
Poppies purple, white and red. 
Swift and fragile flame have spread. 
Zinnia and marigold 
Spring's blithe hardihood unfold. 
Here are the blue sailors, and 
Indigo of Samarcand, 
Coreopsis' fiery stars 
Made to flash on scimitars, 
Gold laburnum, brilliant phlox 
Some pied elfin shepherd leads 
Teasingly through haunts of weeds ; 
Portulaca's sun-cupped wine 
Like the draught of youth divine ; 
Columbine, lorn for bare rocks 

43 



And solitary water-spring ; 
Four-o'clock, unwakening ; 
Basil of old tragic story, 
Mignonette, and morning-glory 
Thin-misted with the breath of dawn. 
A yellow rambler-rose swings on 
The gnarled trunk of an aged pine, 
High and higher up to twine. 
Till on branches buds are seen 
Laughing with the evergreen 
Like a mystic's glad and free 
Dream of immortality. 

Past the garden is a shed. 
All around it junk is spread, — 
Tools that ought to spade or hew 
Or cut, yet never did, nor do, — 
Things hacked out ere rise of sun 
And mercifully left half done. 
Rank and lush the weeds abound 
Over the outlawed ground. 
Ragweed, pigweed, burdock show 
Higher than a man can grow. 
The few vagrant garden seeds 
That spring up are choked by weeds. 
The wild grape and the red lily. 
Watchers on abandoned farms. 
Sleep here in each other's arms. 
Jewel-weed shakes gleaming, chilly 
Dewdrops to the wind. Bee-balms, 
Thistle and day primrose thrive 
Over a forgotten scythe. 

Ho! I thought that all the people 
Were in church beneath the steeple. 
There's another loiterer. 
An old man sits at his door 
Bowed and motionless and hoar. 
Full of years he seems to be 

44 



As I am of heresy. 
Year by year he strove with stones, 
Weather, weeds, and insect-blight, 
Rising up by candle-light. 
Swinging scythe at sultry noon, 
Sometimes under the cold moon. 
Now he feels it in his bones. 
Mild blue eyes he has, and vast 
Beard. The village life goes past 
Where he sits before his door 
Bowed and motionless and hoar. 
I know not what things he sees 
Over the unmoving trees. 



45 



IN THE COW PASTURE. 

THE mortal hurry drops from me. 
I am a brown beast, kind and slow. 
Along uneven paths I go 
And nip a young thorn-apple tree. 
I do not care to move at all 
When sudden thunder-showers fall, 
Pasturing ruminatively. 



46 



THREE HOURS AT OWEGO. 

THE planks upon the bridge are old, 
And clatter when a team goes by. 
Between them here and there a bold 
New plank rears up and takes the eye. 
Midway a pedagogic man, 
Leaning over, stoops to scan 
Streaming water weeds that spread 
Green in Susquehanna's bed. 

Passing by I come to town. 
Where in the mid-morning hush 
Houses steadily look down 
On dewy lawns and dim smoke-bush. 
Here storekeepers say you nay 
In a suave and stately way. 
Here notes sweet and wavering 
Fall from some child's practising. 

Could I but linger year by year, — 
And even now the train is due, — 
I would build a castle drear, 
I would build a homestead too. 
And the masking ivy leaves 
Should cover battlements and eaves 
Till none but nesting birds might see 
Their dissimilarity. 



47 



SEPTEMBER WALK. 

A LEVEL Stretch lies on ahead. 
Shivering we quit the forest shade 
Where puddles stay undried and brown mushrooms are made. 
For bushes flowering in hot sun 
And the bees working over them. 
Goldenrod with sweet-fern grows 
Upon the right; the oat fields spread, 
And buckwheat. A few apple trees 
Stand in grain up to their knees, 
Dropping round them gnarly fruits. 
Beyond the fields a river flows 
Calm amid the mountains' pride. 
I might be looking on the right, 
But on the left a dirt bank goes 
Straight up to blue sky, and I see 
Water dripping from the roots 
Of shrubs atop it, — such a sight 
As if the ground cracked suddenly 
By commandment of a jinn 
And I saw what the woodchuck sees, 
Without the toil of digging in. 



48 



THE SAGE'S BOAT. 

I TAKE my boat out in the cloudy morning to ponder on truth. 
Over the lake stirred by faintest undulations 
I row silently 

Among stumps topped with coarse grass 
And logs lengthwise in the water 
Rotting, covered with moss. 
I pass over red and yellow reflections 
Of trees, red and yellow, that come down to the lake edge. 
Willows and cattail rushes 
Stand out in the water to meet my boat. 
I float shoreward over lily pads. 
The cattail rushes close about the boat, 
Waving over my head. 
A wind stirs their tops. 
Leaving the willow leaves motionless. 

I see the cattails reflected, clear and mysterious, in the water, 
And the image of the white sun of heaven. 
I ponder on truth ultimate and imageless, 
But I cannot grasp it. 
I think in the images about me, — 
The cattails reflected in the water 
And the image of the white sun of heaven. 



49 



PRISONERS. 

WE rise not up to wonder of winged mirth, 
We bow not down to the ground's abysmal prayer, 
O birds like resurrection over the air, 
O meek and lowly dead, possessing the earth ! 



50 



NOCTURNE. 

WE have given our hearts to the Beast, for the Beast to 
share, 
The stealthy-footed patrol of the city street. 
Custom his name, and tame all his ways and sweet. 
Though blood yet drips on the chartered pavement fair. 
Not as the conquered, flinging to ancient air 
Hearts more free than their fiery winding-sheet. 
We have given our hearts to the Beast, for the Beast to share, 
The stealthy-footed patrol of the city street. 
Long his hunger as an avenging prayer. 
While we, crying out where the midnights meet, 
Mark the pacing of those majestic feet 
With the recurrence of never-evaded care. 
We have given our hearts to the Beast, for the Beast to share. 



51 



THE SEARCH FOR THE WILL. 

A LADY exquisite and old 
Lies beneath the shadowy gold 
Canopy, about her head 
The cold patience of the dead ; 
And the lady's maid beside 
Watches, breathless and wide-eyed 
At each far-off murmuring, 
Like some hunted forest thing 
Without a friend or a pretence, 
Whose dumbness is its one defence. 
The physician now has gone 
And the rector soft withdrawn, 
Nothing left to say or do. 
What are these come stealing through 
The tranced house, from room to room 
Peering, troubling the rich gloom, 
Till by different doors they reach 
The silent chamber, without speech 
Confronting one another, eyes 
Averted, with a pale surprise*? 
Sudden explanations break 
From all. With dignity all make 
It evident they could not rest 
When their relative's request 
Had called them hither, — they had come. 
The lady's maid sits frozen dumb. 
Each one, shrugging doubtfully. 
Starts upon a specialty. 
With incredulous, veiled looks. 
One proceeds to search the books. 
Turning leaves and scattering 
White light through the chamber dim. 
One bends with assured air 
Above the old and carven chair 
Of the watcher by the bed. 
Whispering.- She shakes her head. 
One, aghast and tremulous. 
Vexed with himself he should be thus 

52 



When the rest have equal claim 

To a supernatural blame, 

Holds his wife's effects, while she 

Flings the jewels restlessly 

From their dark Etruscan. case, 

Strews the gowns of dewy lace 

And sunset cloud about the floor, 

Fumbles for a secret door 

Behind the portrait frame, that, stirred, 

Groans almost a spoken word. 

And the lady keeps her state. 

High, and yet inviolate, 

Like a halo round her head 

The cold patience of the dead. 



53 



THE LAKE ON MY LANDS. 

MASTER of rolling plains, to sow and reap, 
Master of timbered mountains, that rise up 
One after other till they only cease 
At the command of time and space, to which, 
Master of many lands, I bow as they, 
I have no lordship of my mountain lake. 
It is not even measurable to me. 
Asking upon the brink, "O, what am I*?" 
I lean above the surface. The clear lake 
Gives, with the calm directness of a child, 
My image, in abundant green of trees 
And quiet blue commingled, and the flash 
Of winged dragon fly. All these it holds 
Upon the surface, and the depths move not, 
Remote and imageless and ocean-deep. 
Should the lake ask of me, "O, what am I?" 
I could not answer ; for I hollowed not 
The cleft that goes down far as the mountain towers, 
In which the stainless water lies asleep. 
What titan agony or young despair 
Of earthquake shock, or what descending glacier 
Passed, with enduring imprint, I know not; 
Nor how long since, what far and savage night 
When herded wolves froze under a bright moon, 
The water, pouring in, possessed its home. 
The lake was never thought nor formed by me. 
It lies, the confidant of heaven's delight. 
Swallow and wind upon the surface pass, 
And water beetles take their crooked way. 
And lilies slow and radiant unfold. 
To each what each desires, but to me 
Wondering about the depth, it gives no sign. 
I might sink in it, yet I could not plumb 
The waters. Below accident they wait 
Certain and imageless and infinite. 
I thought the sun would send a final path 
Of light into my lake. The sun looked down, 
And looked upon the lake most gloriously, 

54 



But, blind in his essential burning, gazed 
But little distance in. The depths remain 
Secret and imageless and infinite. 
And in the lake the moon from a steep throne 
Viewed her own solitude with awe, and passed 
Upon her winged throne. The depths remain 
Patient and imageless and infinite. 



ss 



LIBERATED. 

''TT T'hy dost thou watch the lotus-bloom all day, 

VV Thou who hast come so short a road, yet weary? 
Why, when the hills with whirling snows are dreary, 
Dost thou go leaping like a stag at play'?" 

"Sources of streams rolled underground, mysterious 
As mighty-armed and waning kingdoms' care. 
Sources of braggart dynasties, imperious 
Over the jackal and the empty air, 

"Long have I traced. I soared above and under 
The wheel of things that breaks whatever is, 
Ahasuerus-like ; and wilt thou wonder 
I love the lotus more than maiden's kiss? 

"I that have watched Mnemosyne a-sleeping 
And angel Lucifer hurled down the height, 
Where is the wonder that I go a-leaping 
With lonely stags, against the winter light?" 



56 



CHILD OF ADAM. 

I WAS the rock 
Warm or cold as sun came or went, 
I was the oak 

And boughs grew out of me, 
I was the lake, reflecting early light, 
Ages ago. The event came between, — 
Dark, estranging, mighty, ineffable, — 
Between me and my brothers so innocent and sure. 
No sign of it dwells in the caverns of ocean. 
No mark of it on hills unscalably divine. 
What was it that could isolate a race, 
That, all the source grown mythic, yet can drive 
Me through rejoicing May, a bowed and contrite man*? 



57 



FAILURES. 

THEIR rightful fate has turned them down. 
They will not have a substitute, — 
From driving wagons through the town 
Descend to grind horse-radish root. 
If they wear not the coronal 
They'll starve before they strive at all. 
The old professional allure, 
Decreasing friends, makes want secure, 
Until with pride of specialty 
They have attained to misery. 

And some, like rock beneath the sun 

Or weeds or earth or heavy rain. 

Are elementally begun. 

But never ended or made plain; 

Forever promising a spring 

They hint of resurrectioning. 

They have no thought of time, like trees. 

Not so far different from these 

The interrupted seers, bowed 

And sullen, from lightning of a cloud. 

The ardent spirits in the throng 

Of care-worn toilers, with a mind 

To roar while tracking down the wrong 

That is let slip by sleeker kind ; 

The folk whose phantasies give birth 

To wrong that never was on earth. 

Alike apportioning their blame 

Prophetically fare the same. 

As swift as in Jerusalem 

Their days of leanness follow them. 

Herein are the conservative 
Old votaries of seven sins ; 
Herein the lotterists who give 
Their venture to the man that wins ; 
And they whose lives are different 

J8 



For the constraining past event 
That set the boundary for aye. 
The born spectators of the play 
Through half-closed eyes' insouciance 
Herein observe the puppet-dance. 

It is a disenchanting wine 
That these will drink unto the end, 
Who have nor human nor divine 
Approval where the hills descend. 
I know not of what Circe's cup 
The children of good fortune sup, 
What incantations therein flow 
That all alike those children grow. 
I pray God keep me from success, — 
My only answered prayer, I guess. 



59 



THE GUARDIANS. 

WHEN Step by step fate beats me farther back 
Until I stand upon the ultimate, 
It is not will nor instrument I lack 
To put myself beyond the spoils of fate ; 
Nor duty to a Maker that made ill, 
Nor judgment from the lips of living men, 
Nor end of what I only might fulfil. 
Nor pain of endless doom arrests me then. 
I hold my sword because, the chasm past, 
I fear the encounter with those mighty dead 
That made each bloody slope unto the last 
A pasture-land where climbing flocks are fed. 
I fear lest they come, vast and justified, 
With mute, appraising eyes, — and turn aside. 



60 



THE FIRST POPPY. 

O SHAKEN scarlet, vauntingly alone 
Under the sun, 
One love there is like thee, and only one 
Under the sun I 



61 



BALLAD. 

THERE on the sea sand 
Of the salt lagoon 
My true love passed me by 
Under the moon. 

She passed me by so close 
I could have touched her hand, 
I could have called her name, 
There on the sea sand. 

Sky blue her robe ; 

It brushed my cloak of gray. 

We said not a word, 

With all the words to say. 

There we passed groping 
Where the water nears. 
Her eyes were blind with judgment, 
And mine with tears. 

There on the sea sand 
Of the salt lagoon 
My true love passed me by 
Under the moon. 



62 



TO A STARFISH. 

WHY thou art here with "simple ignorance" 
We might have mused upon in other days, — 
If out of heaven to resounding ways 
Thou fleddest what the wrath of gods might chance, 
If deeply jewelled in five-pointed dance 
Outstayed sea-crowning of Calypso's praise, 
Or lost when Pleiads swam the ocean maze. 
Yet thanks to science' infinite romance 
We know exactly now why thou art here ; 
The oyster-bed preceding, like a bow 
Thou comest curved and ready, even so. 
With belly turned to suck the oysters near. 
Which great and small the varied reasons are 
Why thou art here, ethereal little star ! 



63 



CHANGING RUNNERS. 

TRAILING along the wet sea sand 
And through the valley it is borne, 
And in the woods the burning brand 
Seems now advancing, now withdrawn 
As the swift, flagging feet come on 
To one that waits half up the height 
With muscles tightening; the light 
Dips as it passes from hand to hand. 
And over the mountain the torch is gone ! 



64 



FREE-THINKERS. 

WE shake the night with onset, the gale is in our faces. 
On through night, through the night we ride. 
Earth cries out from hid and omened places, 
Secrets waken in cave, moraine and tide. 
On through night, through the night we ride. 

Back-blown flare of windy torch-light traces 
For Columbus the isles that he descried. 
Men of honor, leave the land's embraces, 
Gold and fountain leave for those who died ! 
On through night, through the night we ride. 

Down earth's end unfathomable spaces 
Wait. Experience, cowering, turns to hide. 
Hell yawns under the forward-beating paces. 
Crystal spheres* are shattered far and wide. 
On through night, through the night we ride. 

Rest we ask not, nor the good earth's graces. 
Earth whom we to thousand suns allied. 
Goal we know not. Deepest night encases 
Heaven the road, and hell the road denied. 
On through night, through the night we ride. 

*That is, the Ptolemaic theory of the spheres. 



65 



ABELARD. 

WITHOUT, — dull sky and howling sea, 
And the head of St. Gildas' savage abbey, 
Wrapped in thought as man can be. 
Pacing his cloister absently; 
Within, — the mutinous gray monks, met 
Where no taper ever raised 
The blackness of the oubliette. 
Whisper, raging and amazed. 
How the lethal dish, though set 
For Abelard, had missed its way. 
They could only watch and pray. 
He might yet be graveward sent 
With poison in the Sacrament. 
And Abelard, the golden tongue 
Of student Paris and Corbeil, 
Guide of the insurgent young, 
By Soissons Synod forced to lay 
His book on fire, for that they 
Smelt Sabellian heresy, — 
Abelard, who ever taught 
The fierce integrity of thought, 
Walks his cloister musingly. 
But he does not think on these. 
Nor on peerless Heloise 
Single-souled enough to win 
Triumph at love's wakeful throne. 
Halfway love made his love sin. 
Piety he madly cast 
Over the exhausted past, 
A cloak like parchment dry and thin. 
He is true to thought alone. 
So he paces, challenging the dead. 
Augustine spake sooth*? But St. Paul said 
Quite the opposite ; if Gregory 
Wrote by inspiration, then Jerome 
Wrote by something else ; they disagree. 
Athanasius here and Isidore 
There — a contradiction — Sic ei Non. 

66 



Heeding not love's scourge and doom's 
Behind, while cloudily before 
Excommunication looms, 
He walks his cloister musingly. 



67 



THE UNDETERRED. 

Child: 

I ride to meet the globed moon tonight 

A charger, swimming, through a snow-white rack, 

The amber ring and spiritual blue. 

Sister: 

Beautiful child, the fairy steeds run wide 
Upon their pasturage of broom, to seek 
Immeasurable pools that rise and fall. 

Child: 

I ride to meet the orange moon tonight 

A stallion, winged as I dare not tell. 

I think his mane streams like an angry sun. 

Sister: 

Beloved of music, Pegasus flies free 

And proud, with heroes ; far from our dim earth 

His hoofs are on the oriental hills. 

Child: 

And now the wind is carrying more high 
My thistledown-light words so chill and high. 
I ride tonight the pale horse they call Death. 



68 



THE ANTIQUE NECKLACE. 

THE snake I clasp round my throat was chosen 
By one I love who had first loved me, 
The golden snake, with his red eyes frozen 
As gems upcast by a sanguine sea, 
The golden snake, with his magic olden 
As Thebes may be. 

For him full many a slave was stranger 
To sun and life in the far-hewn mine. 
And he has looked like a living danger 
On warlike Pharaohs laid in line. 
I tremble, knowing his scales resemble 
The dead spears' shine. 

At night, when all of the world reposes, 
I dream the darkness begins to gleam. 
And smoothly strangling, the reptile closes 
About my throat in a gliding stream 
That brightens fast as the necklace tightens, 
Within my dream. 



69 



VENICE. 

THE dews of a glittering midnight have lain on my hair, 
And the courts gape wide from their moony mirrors cold 
While I hold my breath for an echo upon the stair, 
Awaiting the clanged armour, the ring and the gold, 
Awaiting the preluding of an ancient air. 
Will they tell as they long ago told me that yet I am fair ^ 
For I dreamed in a slanderous dream of the woes of the old. 
And the dews of a glittering midnight have lain on my hair. 



70 



VAGABOND. 

A WILD rose, closed from night and rain, 
I kissed as I came over the plain. 
May she sleep and dream again 
How one who'll roam 
Till the clouds come home 
Kissed her, laughing, in the rain. 



71 



APRIL AFTERNOON. 

THE winged leaves are too transparent bright 
For shadow on the ground. The sun pours through 
Swamp maple's ghostly grayness to delight 
Of the moist earth, where hushed anemones 
And wakeful starflowers hoard their early dew, 
And woolly ferns uncurl at roots of trees. 
A brook finds out its journey cold and new 
Through leaf mould and deep mossy crevices. 



72 



NATURE SPEAKS. 

I CALL in wind and heavenly flame 
And in the sea 
For girls that never come again to me. 
All my children in the spring 
Have another wakening 
Save these, that never come again to me. 
These, that full of wildest glee 
Swayed in the tree-tops, ran against the blast, 
These that not ever time nor fear could tame 
Love tamed at last. 



73 



THE NORTH WIND. 

I HEAR the north wind plunging to a goal 
That he knows not, — 
The formless one, the nameless one, the unforgot, 
Beyond the arctic or antarctic pole. 
I hear him howling anger up the night 
Because a windowpane arrests his flight 
With form, and, manifest, the journey breaks. 
A stream, a cliff, a branchy wood he makes. 
Clanging his wings in anger at the sight. 
Detained from warfare with the infinite; 
In anger and in terror from the spot 

Flies to the formless one, flies to the nameless one, the unforgot, 
Lessening along the night 
To what is not. 



74 



ADVICE. 

HOLD thy life a winged seed 
Blowing o'er the good earth's mead. 
Toss it an thou list, nor rue it. 
Wilt thou not*? Then time will do it. 

Hold thy name a cockle boat 
That the seaward rivers float. 
Let the river waves leap through it. 
Wilt thou not *? Then time will do it. 

Hold thy love but as a light 
Flying through a windy night. 
Let the sporting winds pursue it. 
Wilt thou not^ Then time will do it. 



75 



THE EAGLE'S FLIGHT. 

WINGS go through the night, outspeeding earth toward 
dawn. 
After many hours the night is moved to speak: 
"What are you, solitary eagle*?" 
"The thought of man." 
• "Eagle, your wings are blackened with old flame." 
"From the temples of Hathor at Denderah I beheld Eltanin 

rise." 
"Where in illimitable space might be your eyrie *?" 
"The eyrie is illimitable space." 



76 



ALI TO AZRAEL. 

Out of the Wilderness. 

Angel that ever leanest at the portal 
.zV. Above the shell where lustral water lies 
Deeper than depth of the reflected eyes 
That are not mortal, 

I front my death. The liberating hour 
Is come. I sought and never found reply, — 
In tortured consciousness and baffled power 
Forgotten, die. 

A stranger that has offered to thy heaven 
Spare vintaging of earth grown wise too late, 
A watcher of the planets that are seven 
Turns to thy gate. 

I strove with beasts, expatriate and lonely. 
My fault was great, and great mine agony. 
I never called light darkness. For this only 
Pray unto thee. 

At length, before untried abysms cover 
Insentience, reconciling clod with clod, 
An instant come to me as to thy lover. 
Angel of God ! 



77 



LITANY OF THE COMFORTABLE. 

REMEMBERING Thy sacrificial throne, 
. We chosen guardians of revelation 
Establish on the earth the Word's foundation 
On men that groan. 

We praise and magnify Thee, that of seed 
Thy martyrs planted who in anguish died 
We are the fruit indeed. 
Consummate, justified. 

Against inquiry and ardour's heat 
Thy mercy we entreat; 

From consequence untoward and perilous 
Deliver us ; 

From rod and tribulation for Thy sake 
Deliver us ; 

From slander, ruin and from social break 
Deliver us ; 

From too-exceeding love and penitence ; 
From unproductive forms of violence 
Deliver us ; 

From needless pain and execrated sorrow ; 
From the fool's paradise, unplanned tomorrow; 
From hunger fell, with its fell partner thirst; 
From leprous blight of poverty accursed; 
From exile, revolution and the rest 
That Thou hast blest. 
Deliver us ; 

And at the last, we pray Thee, of Thy grace 
From sudden death 

Deliver us ; 
Lest it be truly as the prophet saith. 
That in unsheltered space 
We look upon Thy face. 

78 



CONCERNING MARTYRDOM. 

ONE man views uncreated light; 
The crowd descends to raging night. 
One man forgives ; the multitude 
Reeks of hate and fear and blood. 
Can a man be free indeed 
When his brothers are not freed, 
Or the Kingdom be possessed 
When the mob at madness' heat 
Changes to a preying beast*? 
Martyrdom is incomplete. 
It is but the link between 
What shall be and what has been. 
Men saw justice rude begun 
When evil was for evil done ; 
Then the martyr's sacrifice 
With good for evil made them wise, 
Being but the stepping-stone 
To the greater justice shown 
Of good exchanged for good alone. 
When the multitude become 
Nobly wise and calmly free 
There will be no martyrdom. 
Only reciprocity 
Of good interchanged for good 
And difference largely understood. 
Sacrifice leads into this. 
New law with ancient law to blend, 
And eternal justice is 
The beginning and the end. 



79 



ELAN VITAL. 

SOME days I tend with careful sun and showers, 
But hungry time demands their fruit of me, 
And I alone possess my wasted hours, 
Which are the children of infinity. 
I dare rejoice that I have offered gifts 
To many a deity of wood and clay, 
And many a house have built where sea sand drifts. 
And many a ship lost on the ocean-way. 
I dare rejoice at trespassing and tears 
And at the doomed Niagaras of the soul 
That, flowing faster as the chasm nears, 
Go down in thunder, knowing not their goal ; 
For by their depth of wastage I can tell 
How deep the source, how inexhaustible. 



80 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



